Rain stopped being weather and turned into language. Each drop struck her visor like punctuation, building sentences she didn't want to read. The bike's hum bled into her bones until she couldn't tell if her ribs were vibrating from throttle or from something older, something the asphalt remembered and didn't want to let go.
Ko Shing Street should have been near. She'd taken this run enough times to trace it blind, every kink in the tramline, every crossing where the light fought the rain and lost. But tonight the map bent. Blocks stretched long, then snapped short. AR arrows re-drew themselves in loops, always promising next turn, next turn.
Wulong stirred in the backpack, claws catching thread.
MOTHER, he pressed, voice stiff. WRONG RAIN.
She grinned anyway. "Rain's always wrong here. That's why it tastes good."
The grid coughed static across her visor: WOOD MONKEY: TURN BACK. The words smeared into hexagrams, then into nothing. She throttled harder, letting the engine's snarl chew through the warning. The rear wheel spat spray against a taxi's lacquer, leaving a comet's tail of neon across its flank.
Fortune tellers had colonized the street corners—half flesh, half AR. She caught one glimpse through the rain: an old man behind a folding table, actual paper hexagrams under his hands, but the AR overlay painted him as six different gods at once, all demanding coins. Her aura tugged too close. The gods jittered, then tore themselves to white noise. The man spat in her direction, like he knew it was her fault.
Wulong's voice rose, a crack of thunder that barely fit in her skull.
MOTHER STOP. TURN.
"Relax," she hissed. "It's a lizard errand, not Judgment Day."
The city disagreed.
The front tire clipped the tram rail. A whisper at first, then the pull of steel on steel. The fork twitched in her grip. She held it hard.
Rain pressed on her visor in sheets. Not weather anymore, but a drumbeat. Each strike sharp, insistent, carving rhythm into her skull.
Ko Shing Street should've been close. She knew the way blind. Tramlines, crossings, the kink near the pawnshop where the light always lost to the rain. Tonight the map bent. Blocks stretched long, then snapped short. Arrows redrew themselves in loops, promising next turn, next turn, never arriving.
Wulong stirred in the backpack, claws dragging across canvas.
MOTHER, he pressed, voice stiff. WRONG RAIN.
She grinned against her teeth. "Rain's always wrong here. That's why it tastes good."
The visor grid coughed static. WOOD MONKEY: TURN BACK. Words smeared into crooked hexagrams, then into nothing. She throttled harder. The engine snarled, rear wheel kicking spray across a taxi's lacquer, streaking neon down its side.
The street was busy in ways it shouldn't be. Fortune tellers had colonized the corners—half flesh, half AR. She caught one through the blur: an old man at a folding table, paper hexagrams real under his hands, but overlays dressed him as six gods at once, all demanding coins. Her aura brushed too near. The gods jittered, smeared, collapsed into noise. The man spat into the gutter, eyes narrowed, like he knew who broke them.
Wulong's thought cracked thunder in her skull.
MOTHER STOP. TURN.
"Relax," she hissed. "It's a lizard errand, not Judgment Day."
The city disagreed.
The front tire found the tram rail. A whisper, then a hook. The fork trembled in her hands. Still hers—for the moment.
Rain hammered the visor. The sound shifted, deepened. Not drops anymore. Drums hollow enough to carry salt. Water surged up her chest in an instant. Neon bent under it, whole signs flickering like weeds in current. Voices chanted behind the storm, low and steady.
She blinked hard. The world snapped back. Rails. Asphalt. Taxis bleeding light across wet lacquer. A bus flank looming too close, spray sheeting from its tires.
The fork jerked. Her ribs slammed the tank. Pain flared, sharp and bright. She hauled it right. The bike screamed. Peg kissed stone, spat sparks under her heel.
Then fire. Heat pressed her visor. Kowloon towers split like glass idols. Shards poured sparks across the sky. Drones drifted overhead, optics red, gridding smoke into lines she couldn't parse. Her visor painted flame where only rain should be.
She dragged the bars straight. Reflex against vision. Reflex lost.
The rail hooked her tire. The bike shrieked high, then went light. Both wheels cut loose. Spray fanned up behind, neon riding it in a comet's tail. For a breath she was flying.
Gravity dragged her back. The rear wheel snapped sideways, rubber screaming. The pack burst. Wulong tumbled out, claws and yowl tangling, thought lancing her skull:
MOTHER!
Her chest slammed the tank. Air punched free. HUD cracked to static. Glyphs tumbled across the visor, unreadable, until one hung clear in white strokes: FIRE DRAGON.
The bike toppled. Sparks rained as the bar dragged. Shoulder hit first, hip after, ribs jolting sharp. Leather scraped thin.
She slid. Rain drilled into her, each drop a nail. The street tilted into mirrors—flood on one pane, fire on the next, both layered across stone.
The bike skidded beside her, screaming metal. Tank groaned as it twisted, sparks scattering across her gloves.
Her helmet buzzed with static. Copper hit her tongue. Neon smeared.
Another vision slammed in. Families dragging charms through smoke. Paper burning in fists. Children carried across water thick as tar.
She gasped. The slide spun her, rolled her onto her back. Sky wheeled above—rain, flame, drones—too many skies, none true.
The bike clipped curb, rebounded. Showered sparks across her chest.
Her hands clawed wet grit. Gloves skated. Nothing held.
Ahead, shapes resolved. Seven. Robes heavy, crowns ember-red. They stood patient, waiting across her path.
Her chest tightened. Ribs ground against each other.
The slide carried her closer.
Her head struck stone. White burst behind her eyes.
Then black.
Ringing came later. Much later.
Not a siren, not a bell — the kind of high, thin whine that lives inside bones. Rain hammered the street in hard, bright stitches. Neon smeared itself across puddles and ran away.
Iris lay on her side, visor cracked to a spiderweb. The world through it came in slices: curb, wheel, her own shoulder, a smear of pink light. The bike had skidded past and collapsed at a spiteful angle, rear tire still spinning slow, chewing grit.
Breath wouldn't come. Her ribs had forgotten how to open.
Wulong's voice found the crack in her skull and wedged itself there, small and fierce:
MOTHER. BREATHE.
She tried. Air burned. Copper flooded her mouth. Something sharp complained under her left collarbone. She rolled a fraction, everything in her arguing, and the breath slipped in ragged, stayed, slipped out again.
The rain drilled harder. It filled the crack in her visor, ran cold across her cheek, pooled against her tongue. Diesel wind shoved incense into it until both turned metallic. She tasted city.
Someone shouted somewhere — a cabbie's curse, a woman scolding a ghost, a vendor banging a shutter — all of it far, like sound had been stretched on a rack and thinned out. The tram bell clanged once, cautious, then thought better of it. Traffic gathered itself into a hesitation and went around her in a wide, respectful arc, like water avoiding a live wire.
A police drone dipped, its optics blooming blue as it triangulated lane violations and fines. It drifted close enough to taste her aura. The lights hiccupped. Matrices shuffled. The drone reevaluated the concept of paperwork and chose mercy out of self-preservation. It rose, sulking, and pretended rain distorted the feed.
"Good boy," she wanted to say. The mouth part didn't happen.
A slip of paper lay plastered to the asphalt by her hand, soaked flat, ink bleeding into the sheen. Auntie's list. The characters had let go of their spines and blurred together: chuan bei turning to rivers, loquat leaf dissolving to fog, the little addendum — gecko — drifting apart like bones in water. She pressed two fingers to it, felt the tenderness of soggy paper, and the uselessness of it hit her with a stupid, bright anger.
Not today. Not for dried geckos.
Her fingers skated on grit. The anger went out like a match in rain.
Wulong's body was a smear of shadow and wet fur by the curb, ears flattened to his skull, eyes white wide. He wasn't bleeding — or he was, and the rain was taking sides. He crawled on kitten elbows toward her, every movement small and decisive, and then collapsed against her forearm, claws failing to find purchase. His brain-voice had shrunk to a coal:
MOTHER ... here.
"Bossy," she tried. A sound scratched out that could have been a laugh in better weather.
The throat-singing track still bled in one ear — bass muttered from a speaker that had bitten its own wire. The rhythm trudged like weather over steppe, unbothered by cities or rain or mortality. It kept time while her own pulse refused.
Headlights wobbled across the wet. A motorbike ghosted near, slowed, thought about honor, then remembered fear and moved on. A pair of kids leaned over a rail under a dripping awning, eyes bright with the thrill of seeing a crash that wasn't theirs. One raised his phone. The other smacked his hand down and whispered something urgent about don't film that girl, not that girl, are you stupid. Good child. Smart friends live longer.
The city pressed in, curious. Not malicious — today it didn't have to be. It just wanted to see if she would get up.
She would. She always did. Legs under, hand to tank, haul and swear and stand. That was the choreography.
Her body vetoed the plan with a small, bureaucratic stamp.
She lay still and listened to rain.
The seven crowns lingered at the edge of her sight, ember-red impressions burned onto the inside of her eyelids by the vision. Not figures now, not faces — afterimages. When she blinked, they blinked back, perfectly patient.
Wulong's head butted her glove, a ridiculous softness against all this metal.
MOTHER. HOLD.
"Hold," she rasped. The sound made pain jump in fine lines along her ribs. "I'm holding."
Auntie's list flapped once in the run-off from the curb and tried to leave. The rain pasted it back down. Errand undone. Back by lunch, she'd said. She barked a little air through her teeth at the memory and called it a laugh to keep from tasting pity.
Lights flickered above — a broken sign trying to decide whether to sell dumplings or penance. It chose neither, went dark, and left the street to the gray honesty of rain. Somewhere up in scaffolding, a worker coughed the kind of cough Auntie would diagnose from across a mahjong table. Iris made a note, the way people make notes when their head is too loud to hold ink.
The ringing in her ears narrowed to a thin wire, then fattened again, then stretched. Distance finally found a siren and pulled it closer. Not for her yet. For someone two blocks over. The city always triaged backwards.
Her visor's fracture ran a new line. One bead of water gathered, fattened, paused, and dropped onto her lip. It was nothing and it was a final straw. Vision tunneled. The street pinched down to the size of that drop.
Wulong's thought dwindled to a thread:
Mother... Stay.
She would. Whether by choice or because choice had left wasn't worth the debate.
The throat-singing cut out. The earbud surrendered.
Silence stepped closer, smelling of wet concrete and boiled garlic. It had soft feet.
Her last clear view was the ink-blurred scrap under her hand and the crooked reflection of her own visor in a puddle that didn't like her face. She considered smirking at it, chose not to waste the muscle.
The city, satisfied, turned the volume down. The rain became background. The neon went to sleep. The crowns behind her eyes cooled to ash.
Everything else followed.
Black.